


Giving Thanks

by elumish



Series: Werewolves 101 [16]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Gen, Holidays, M/M, Multi, Pack Feels, Professor Stiles Stilinski, Writer Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5728177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott doesn’t cook. He can’t cook. He set toast on fire. Three times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“—rumors that officials are considering banning Agazzi from competing in the United States archery Olympic qualifying round.”

“That’s absurd. She hasn’t been proven to be involved with anything; just because we now know some of her family is made of nutjobs doesn’t mean she should be disqualified from competing.”

“But there have been rumors that she was at the very least complicit in some of the—”

“Turn that off.” Stiles twists around on the couch to look at Scott, who’s leaning into the room. “I don’t want to keep listening to that.”

Stiles flips channels, and oh look, CNN. “This okay?”

Scott shrugs. “As long as it’s not more of that mess, I don’t care.” And then he ducks back into the kitchen, where he’s doing absolutely nothing of use. Because Scott doesn’t cook. He can’t cook. He set toast on fire. Three times. Melissa decided after that his role was strictly cleaning.

The commercial for the guy who travels places and eats weird stuff ends, transitioning into a news anchor with a bright smile and tasteful cleavage. “Welcome back and happy Thanksgiving. As the primary season heats up, rumors are flying about the possible candidacy of Congresswoman Laura Hale. Hale, a member of the Alpha Council, is the daughter of Talia Hale, the first woman on the Alpha Council and one of the victims in the Hale fire. Hale made news recently, first from her leading one side of the first public split in the Alpha Council, then from her appearance at Northern California University following the recent unrest there, and most recently from being shot—”

“Okay, hello, done with this.” Stiles considers flipping to something else, but all that’s on is news, reruns, and football, so he just turns it off. “Isaac, let me _help_.”

Isaac shouts from the kitchen, “You baked twelve pies. I don’t need help.”

Damn those pies. He wants something to do until Derek shows up, but they won’t let him, and it’s annoying as hell. “I can bake another pie.”

“Malia’s here with her plus one,” Scott shouts back. “Entertain them.” A second later, there’s a knock on the door, and Scott calls, “Come in.”

The door swings open, and Stiles hears Scott greeting Malia and the girl who must be Malia’s plus one. Probably the one Malia slept with, and Stiles should know more about her, but things have been so fucked up recently he hasn’t gotten a chance to find out. Because he’s a shitty friend. No big surprise there.

A girl walks into the room a few seconds later, human, probably Korean, with long hair that starts black at the top and runs in a gradient down to blue at the bottom. She raises a hand in greeting. “Hey. I’m Elizabeth. Lizzie. Malia’s…whatever. You must be Stiles.”

“Yep. I would get up, but, uh.” He gestures down at his lap, and she walks around the couch to stand in front of him.

“You two together?”

Stiles blinks down at Lydia, who’s asleep, head in his lap. She hasn’t been sleeping, they all haven’t, and no matter how scared she is of Beacon Hills, it’s a place they can sleep. “What? Oh, no. My boyfriend will be here in like an hour.”

Lizzie stares at him. “But you’re all—” She gestures towards the two of them. “Together.”

Oh god, humans. “We’re friends. It’s a thing friends do for each other, at least in a pack. Unless you see two—or more—people actually having sex, especially if they’re in a pack together, don’t assume they’re together.”

She nods, dropping down in a chair. “Thanks for the advice. Uh, fluffy-haired guy, Isaac? He told me I wasn’t allowed to help.”

“Isaac doesn’t like people invading his kitchen.”

“ _You made pie. Stop complaining._ ”

Stiles nods, gesturing back towards the kitchen. “See? So you’re with Malia?”

Lizzie lifts one shoulder, then drops it. “Kind of, I guess. With enough, however you define it.”

“Which is…?”

“We’re having sex. That enough for you, or do you need details?”

Ugh. “Please, God, don’t give me details. But Malia’s my friend, and I get to make sure you’re not planning on fucking her over.” Lydia stirs in his lap, shifting against his thigh, and he puts his hand on her hair. “We’re a messy pack, and if you’re planning on screwing her over, you’re going to regret it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Look, it’s sex, and it’s fun, but we’re not exchanging promise rings and going through a handfasting.”

“A handfasting?”

“A wedding, whatever. My last girlfriend was pagan.” Lydia shifts again, a noise coming from deep in her throat, and Lizzie asks, “She okay?”

“She’s fine.” Probably having a nightmare, but according to Allison she hasn’t slept through the night in weeks, so that’s not all that surprising. And then Lydia moves again, more frantically this time, fingers grasping at the couch, sucking in breath, and shit, he knows that sound. He slides his fingers through her hair. “Hey, Lydia, shh, don’t scream.”

Lydia goes still, then gasps, bolting upright so fast he doesn’t have a chance to pull his arm away, dragging him along with her. He ends up half on top of her, legs tangled as he tries not to fall and take her with him.

She blinks at him. “What the hell?”

Stiles carefully extracts his hand from her hair, sitting back in his spot. She’s sitting on her legs in a way that can’t be comfortable, but she doesn’t seem to have much interest in moving. “Hey. Afternoon. You good?”

She glances over at Lizzie, who’s watching them with curious eyes, then slides to her feet. “I’m fine. Have to go touch up my makeup. Nice to meet you, whoever you.” And then she flounces out of the room, somehow managing to look like she’s in heels even while barefoot.

There’s another knock on the outside door, and Stiles hops to his feet. “Sorry, I have to get that. Make yourself at home.” And then he hurries into the other room, heading to the door to open it, because Derek should be there any minute. He throws the door open with a smile—then groans. “You’re not Derek.”

Liam pushes past him, leaving Mason standing in the doorway, smiling awkwardly. “Nope, not quite. Though from what I’ve heard, I should wish I was. Not for the, you know, having sex with you part. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, you’re just not my type.”

“Thanks.”

Liam shoves Stiles out of the way to drag Mason into the building. “Move.”

Mason shrugs, moving past Stiles into the kitchen, where Scott is standing, checking out Isaac’s ass. Which isn’t super helpful, but kitchens really aren’t Scott’s specialty. He offers Mason a hand. “Nice to see you.”

“Yeah, you too. Thanks for the invite. Hey, Isaac, Malia. Where’s everyone else?”

Scott shrugs. “Kira, Allison, and Derek are on their way, and so are my mom and Sheriff Stilinski. Parrish is busy”—aka not invited but they don’t want to advertise that—“and we figured having Derek Hale and Chris Argent in the same room would be a bad idea. And Malia’s girlfriend is in the living room.”

Malia blinks at him. “Right.” And then she heads out of the room, which, okay, that’s awkward. Apparently she forgot about her own girlfriend.

“Lydia’s upstairs fixing her makeup,” Stiles puts in as Liam and Mason start heading into the living room, and then someone taps him on the back, and he spins around to see Derek standing in the doorway, smiling. “Hey, you’re here.”

“Hey.” Derek leans over to give him a peck on the lips, then looks at Scott. “Nice to see you again, Alpha McCall.”

Scott beams at him, all happy because it’s Thanksgiving and he loves holidays and family and pack and people in his apartment. He’s a good goddamn alpha, even if he’s shit at interpersonal relationships. “Scott, please. We’re not particularly big on standing on ceremony here.”

“He once forgot he was alpha for a month.”

Scott groans. “To be fair, it was early.”

Stiles puts his arm around Derek’s waist. “It was three months after he became alpha. Kind of long enough to remember.”

Derek looks at him. “And you didn’t remind him?”

“I didn’t know he forgot. He just wasn’t turning much. And then one day he turned, looked in the mirror, and freaked the hell out. It was hilarious.”

“Having red eyes staring back at you when you’re expecting brown—or at the very least yellow—is a little unnerving.” A timer goes off, and Scott looks at Isaac. “You want me to take that out?”

Isaac glances at him. “You going to remember to put a mitt on this time?”

“Yeah.”

“Then sure.”

Scott leans over, grabs an oven mitt, and opens the oven to pull the casserole out. Derek says, “I’m sure there’s a story behind that.”

Isaac laughs, pushing something around one of his pans. “Yeah, turns out werewolves don’t heal burns that well.”

Derek’s expression shutters as Stiles winces. Because yeah, Derek knows that. But then Derek smiles and says, in a voice that’s only a little bit strained, “Better than we used to. Burn treatment’s advanced a lot.”

Isaac glances back at him. “Right, sorry.”

“Not like I’ve ever forgotten.”

“Are we going to stand in the doorway all day?”

Derek freezes, then takes a couple steps forward and spins, spinning Stiles with him so they’re facing Allison, who’s standing in the doorway. “You smell like Scott.”

She flushes. “Happens when you have sex. I’m sure I smell like Isaac, too. Nice chat, let’s stop talking about it.” She heads in, sliding past Stiles and squeezing his hand. Finding out about Kate and then the public reveal freaked her out, and Stiles has a feeling—though he’ll never say it—that that’s half the reason she fell back in bed with Scott. Because she loves him, but all of them having sex is not always a great idea and they all know it. Not that that ever stopped them from fucking like bunnies.

Not that it’s any of Stiles’s business. He doesn’t want to know.

He really doesn’t want to know.

She heads over to set a hand on the small of Isaac’s back, then lean up to kiss Scott. “Where’s Lydia?”

“Can’t survive without me?” Lydia walks out of the living room, and now the kitchen is starting to get too damn small. “The gang’s all here. Other than Kira. Where is our faux-furry packmate?”

“She should be here in a few minutes. Her parents wanted her to call in for the holidays.” And she’s kind of avoiding Scott and Isaac and Allison, but none of them are going to say that aloud. Hooray for dating inside a pack. Thank God Stiles managed to avoid that.

Lydia walks over to press a kiss to Stiles’s cheek, and he touches her waist. “Thanks for letting me sleep.”

“I expect you to return the favor sometime.”

Derek tightens his grip on Stiles’s side. “Think that’s my job.”

Lydia pats Stiles’s chest. “This is adorable and all, but I’m going to let your big fluffy boyfriend growl over you. Anyone want alcohol?”

\--

Kira’s the last one to come in, a few minutes before dinner is finished (but after Isaac kicked all of them out of the kitchen to sit in the living room and make awkward small talk), and then they all head into the dining-ish room, which has two tables jammed together stretching all the way across the room, and just as she walks in Stiles realizes the problem.

The last time they had holiday dinner (Christmas Eve), Scott was dating Kira, and so Kira sat to Scott’s left and Stiles sat to Scott’s right. In fact, every formal dinner they’ve had has had basically the same seating arrangement, plus or minus a couple of plus-ones, and Kira now switching rank with two people simultaneously is going to make things complicated.

The best thing is probably to have Allison sit on one side of Scott and Isaac sit on his other side, and Stiles will just move down a spot.

He heads to the spot one over from where he would normally sit, Derek trailing after him, but Allison gives him a look. “Take your spot. Isaac and I will sit next to each other.”

“You sure?”

Isaac is the one who nods. “You’re his number two, not me or Allison.”

He looks at Allison, who nods. Okay then. He stands behind the seat to the right of Scott’s spot at the head, Derek stopping next to him, and Allison stands across from Stiles with Isaac beside her. Everyone else fills in their spot; Kira is next to Derek, and she looks genuinely happy, which is good.

The thing is that it’s not that he dislikes Kira. He really genuinely does like her; she’s funny and smart and was good for Scott. But her being with Scott didn’t really help the pack, and Stiles knows that sometimes his moral system is fucked up, but he will destroy anything that hurts the pack. Not that he doesn’t want her to be happy, and not that he wants to get anywhere near Scott’s continuous relationship drama, but pack comes first, end of story.

Near the end of the table, next to Stiles’s dad, Lizzie starts to sit, and Malia grabs her arm, stopping her. Lizzie frowns. “What are you—”

Scott pulls out his chair and sits down, and then there’s a scramble for everyone else to sit. It’s not something they do on a regular basis, this level of formality, but when the entire pack is together in-territory, and most of the affiliates, and it’s _safe_ , they do it.

And the weird thing is that they don’t have anyone who’s born, they don’t have anyone who knows the traditions—shy of him, but he learned a lot of them in college, and this started before he learned it—so all of this developed organically. He can’t feel it as strongly as strongly as Isaac and Liam and, to a lesser degree, Kira and Malia, and Ethan and Aiden had their own weird as fuck ways of deferring, but they all ended up going down this path until it became normal. And this is fairly universal, which means it’s somehow instinctive, which is _weird_.

Scott beams down the table. “Hi, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Everyone in my pack, it’s good to have you home.” And it is; something releases inside of Stiles when he’s in-territory with the rest of the pack, and he can’t imagine how much better it feels for the weres in the pack. “Mom, Sherriff Stilinski, Mason, glad you’re here. Derek and Lizzie, thank you for coming. Everyone grab hands.”

Stiles reaches out and takes Scott’s hand on one side and Derek’s hand on the other, and that right there is exactly where he wants to be. Between his alpha and his lover, not being pulled but holding on to both of them. Around the table, everyone joins hands.

“Because it’s Thanksgiving, we’re going to give thanks. Don’t worry, Lizzie, we’re not saying grace.” Lizzie smiles, which is good, because she’s been looking tense as shit since they got to the table. “Allison, you want to start?”

Allison nods. “Sure. I’m thankful everyone in the pack who was alive last year is still alive now.”

Isaac smiles at her and Scott. “I’m thankful the people I love are safe.”

Lydia’s next, and she looks at Stiles when she says, “I’m thankful there are people willing to do what I can’t bring myself to.”

Cheeks burning, Stiles looks away; he’d throw himself on the Nemeton if it saved the pack, but he doesn’t want to be thanked for it. It’s not for a particularly good reason.

They get around the table—his dad is thankful nobody has died in-territory recently, Scott’s mom is thankful Isaac cooked—and then they reach Kira. And it’s awkward, that momentary silence before she talks, because almost everyone knows what just happened, and tension is pack is inevitable but uncomfortable.

And then she smiles. “I’m thankful that my pack is happy.”

Well okay then. She’s a bigger person than Stiles will ever be. Go her.

Derek’s hand on Stiles’s thigh flexes, and he says, quietly, “I’m thankful Laura is okay.”

Stiles puts his hand over Derek’s, squeezing, and Derek turns his hand to tangle their fingers together. “I’m thankful that I have a pack to come home to, and that we’re still alive.” Except for Aiden, but they don’t talk about Aiden other than the candle burning in the corner.

Scott keeps beaming at them, even though a large number of their thanks were basically ‘yay we’re not dead’. Which, to be fair, yay, they’re not dead. “Well, I’m thankful everyone I care about is in the same room together. And food. Now eat.”

Dishes start being passed around, rotating around the table because they have a shitton of people and that is the only way to make sure everyone gets something. So it’s quiet for a bit, except for the clink of dishes and serving forks and spoons, and Derek has to take his hand away, but his leg pressed against Stiles’s, and Stiles presses back.

Once everything has been passed around, Scott takes the first bite, and then everyone digs in.

After the initial digging in is done—because God, Isaac can cook—Scott turns to Derek. “How is your sister doing?”

Derek shrugs one shoulder, foot twining around Stiles’s ankle. “She’s okay. She’s healed. They want her to run for President just because she got shot, which is a little weird.”

Kira asks, “You think she’s going to do it?”

“No idea.” Derek pokes at a piece of potato on his plate. “There’s a…hesitation to put another target on our backs, especially now, and Peter still isn’t done chewing out everyone in existence for her getting shot, so I don’t know yet.”

Stiles reaches over and grabs his knee, because he looks sad, and Derek smiles at him. Which is good, because Derek has actually been almost okay recently, and even though this is probably kind of hard for him, Stiles doesn’t want him to slip back into being perpetually sad and a little bit triggered, alternating with really sad and actually triggered. Because that’s really awful to watch, and he doesn’t want Derek to be sad.

Isaac looks at them, and he’s always been way more sensitive to how people are feeling, because he not-so-subtly changes the subject, asking, “So you two are all good now?”

Stiles considers just sticking his tongue down Derek’s throat to prove a point, because it’s pack and they wouldn’t give a shit, but his dad is here, and Malia’s very human girlfriend, and so that wouldn’t go so well. He smiles instead. “Yeah, we’re good. We chatted.”

Allison smirks at him. “Chatted. Right.”

“Shut up, I talk to people.”

She laughs. “I’m not doubting that you talk. I’m doubting that you give him a chance to get a word in edgewise.”

Ironic. “No, we’re fine there.”

“He’s keeping your mouth occupied enough?”

Stiles’s dad coughs loudly down at the end of the table. “Okay, I’m still here, and I know you’re all adults in relationships, but let’s continue this when I can’t hear.”

Isaac flushes. “Sorry Sherriff Stilinski.”

There’s silence for a second as Derek goes back to determinedly stuffing food in his mouth, and then Kira leans over to look at Stiles. “Hey, you want to see something cool? I didn’t get to show it to you the last time you were up here.”

Oh boy. “Will it set anything on fire?”

“Uh.” Kira blinks at him, then down at her hand, and that’s a great sign. “Probably not. It didn’t the last few times.”

Awesome. “Yeah, sure.”

She holds out her hand, staring intently at it, and then Lizzie screams.


	2. Chapter 2

“What the _fuck_ is that?”

Kira blinks at the ball of electricity—really fucking cool, by the way—in her hand, closing her hand around it; it disappears as her fingers pass through it. “Electricity.”

“Elec—” Lizzie looks at Malia; she looks a little frantic now, and everyone is watching. “What’s going on? What _is_ she?”

Fantastic. Malia didn’t tell her girlfriend about the uniqueness of their pack. “I’m a kitsune.”

“I thought you were a werewolf pack.”

Oh, so she didn’t even tell her about herself. Great. “I said it was a were pack, and that’s technically…almost true.”

Lizzie stares at her from another second, then shoots to her feet and hurries out of the room. The parents watch her go. Everyone else watches Malia. She watches Scott.

Finally, she asks, “What?”

“Go after her.”

Malia blinks at him, then shoots to her feet, hurrying after Lizzie. After a second, Stiles’s dad laughs. “Well, at least nothing’s on fire.”

Kira looks down at her hand, and Stiles can’t tell it’s amusement or something else on her face. Which means he really needs to get home more, because he should be able to tell what everyone in pack is thinking from just looking at them.

Next to him, Derek goes back to shoveling food into his mouth with the enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t eaten in a month. Or a werewolf. Basically the same.

“Likelihood Lizzie comes back?”

Scott rolls his eyes at Lydia, but Stiles puts in, “Sixty percent.”

Mason laughs. “I’m calling twenty. She looked freaked.”

Liam shoves him. “You freaked out, too.”

“Yeah, but the my-best-friend-is-a-werewolf freak out is a little different from the my-girlfriend’s-pack-is-full-of-things-I’ve-never-heard-of-and-she’s-one-of-them one.”

“Fair point.”

Allison chimes in, “Seventy percent chance she comes back with at least one hickey.”

Isaac laughs. “Sucker bet. Malia’s known for marking her territory.”

“O _kay_ , let’s go back to the no sex talk ban.”

Isaac flushes. “Sorry, Mrs. McCall.” His nostrils flare. “She’s coming back.”

A second later, Malia heads back in, hand on Lizzie’s upper arm, Lizzie smiling sheepishly. “Sorry for freaking out.” Lizzie sits down, Malia sliding into her seat next to her. “I was just kind of surprised.”

Scott smiles at her. “No problem. We can be a bit overwhelming to outsiders.”

That’s the understatement of the century, but whatever. Stiles isn’t going to argue.

\--

Between dinner and dessert, while Scott and Lydia tackle the first round of dishes, Stiles heads over to Kira, asking, “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

She stares at him for a moment, then nods. They head to the room which is ostensibly Isaac’s but has been basically emptied out in favor of all of his shit being in Scott’s room. What is still there, though, is a white noise machine, which Stiles turns on before closing the door.

Kira stands a few feet into the room, arms crossed across her chest. “What’s up?”

“Are you okay? The two of you were together for a long time, and, well, that must suck.”

Kira sighs. “Scott and I have been on and off since we started dating, so this isn’t really new. What _is_ new is the off being with another person. But look, Scott’s been in love with both of them since before the two of us started dating. I always knew it could turn out this way, and honestly, better this than he sleep with her—or Isaac—and tell me later.”

“He wouldn’t have done that to you.”

She laughs, hands falling to her sides. “I know, but I’m not sure yet if knowing he loves me but not enough is better than the thought that he just didn’t love me anymore. I’m fine, Stiles. I don’t want to talk about it, especially not with pack, but I’m fine.”

“If you change your mind—”

“I’ll go to Malia.”

Fair enough. Stiles reaches over and turns off the white noise machine, and the two of them head out of the room to rejoin the fray.

\--

The pies—and cookies and cake, and yeah, they have a lot of dessert, whatever, he likes sugar—are out on the table, people sprawled in their chairs, and Stiles takes his seat, hooking his leg over Derek’s and smiling at him.

Derek puts a hand on his back. “Everything okay?”

“Yep. All good.” He looks at Scott. “Shall we pie?”

Scott grins at him. “Let’s pie.”

It takes a while to get all of the food distributed, mostly because there are like eight types of pie and three types of cookies and two types of cake and it’s like one of those awful permutation questions from high school, except with cake. Cake makes everything okay.

His dad has beer and Scott’s mom has wine, and Lizzie and Mason have beer, too, but pack tends not to drink at stuff like this. It’s not that they don’t drink; all of the humans do, and the werewolves do around pack when they can spike their drinks with wolfsbane without worrying being vulnerable. But they get enough of something like a contact high, or a buzz, from celebrations with all of pack there, especially with the relative depravation of the rest of the time, that they don’t need it. So they don’t drink.

So all Stiles has is the feeling running under his skin, electricity over calm, excitement over safety, and he loves it, loves being here when they’re not in danger, loves having his lover and his pack together, getting along.

They finish their dessert with only minimal teasing of each other—mostly of Stiles for baking twelve pies, but he doesn’t even care about, because pie—Allison and Scott and Isaac doing their weird sappy touching thing, Derek’s hand resting on Stiles’s thigh. And he just wants to have this forever, to have this peace and calm and things not going to hell forever.

As they pile into the living room, Stiles’s dad dropping down in a chair to turn on football with Scott’s mom in another chair, Scott turns to Derek. “Just wanted to let you know you’re invited to Christmas. We do a thing for it.”

Derek half-smiles. “Thanks, but that’s a pack thing for us.”

Stiles nudges Derek, pushing him down on the end of the couch and sitting basically on top of him; there’s not much space, and anyway, he can get away with it, so why not. “Your pack does Christmas but not Thanksgiving?”

Derek honest-to-God blushes, which, hello. “We don’t actually celebrate Christmas. Family stuff isn’t really our thing. But, uh, it’s my birthday.”

“You were born on Christmas?”

“It’s your _birthday_?”

Derek looks between Scott and Stiles—Stiles’s dad is pointedly ignoring them—then shrugs. “The 25th, yeah. It’s not…” He shrugs again. “It’s not a big deal. Laura just likes to celebrate it.”

“As she should.” Stiles pokes Derek in the side, and he grimaces. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Derek—”

“Stiles.” Scott looks at him, and yeah, wrong place, wrong time. “Isaac, stop cleaning and come join us.”

Isaac heads in, dropping down on the ground with his head against Scott’s leg; nobody bats an eye, and thank god for his dad and Melissa for dealing with the shit show that is their pack. “Malia’s gone with his sex friend.”

Scott’s mom snorts. “I don’t think that name is much better.”

Isaac grins at her, looking more relaxed than Stiles usually sees on a good day. “Yeah, but I didn’t think you wanted me to say fuck buddy. Kira headed out, too.”

Scott stiffens, then deliberately releases the tension in his shoulders. “Okay. Thanks.” He puts his hand in Isaac’s hair, and Stiles sees Isaac’s head tilt back, baring his throat. It’s oddly intimate, for such a small moment, much more so than watching Scott make out with Isaac or Allison or whoever. Which Stiles has done way too much. Don’t judge; he hasn’t had a choice.

Derek twines his fingers with Stiles’s, arm wrapped behind his back, and Stiles leans back against him. He would close his eyes, but for whatever reason, he wants to watch Isaac and Scott together. Call it curiosity, or nosiness, or protective instinct, but he wants to know that they’re okay. That Isaac is okay. Because Scott always turns out on top, Scott can deal with everything, but Isaac is…Isaac.

But Isaac looks happy, or at least relaxed, lips apart, eyes closed as he angles himself towards Scott. And Scott is looking at him with such total adoration, Stiles can’t blame Kira for not wanting to watch.

Allison and Lydia appear on either sides of the couch from each other, Lydia sitting next to Stiles and Allison curling up with Scott, and that’s most of them. “Where’s Liam?”

Lydia looks at him, then turns, dropping her feet across his lap. And part of Derek’s, but Derek just rolls his eyes as Stiles puts his free hand on her ankle. “Mason’s family wanted to see both of them, so they headed out. That player has a nice ass.”

Stiles’s dad coughs out a laugh. “Not quite why I watch this, but okay.”

Something happens on the screen, and his dad and Scott’s mom and Allison of all people cheer. Scott meets Stiles’s eye, and this is why they’re best friends, because Stiles can tell exactly what he’s thinking. This game is ridiculous. “It doesn’t even have goals.”

Scott grins at him as his dad shoots him an annoyed look. “Sometimes I don’t know how you’re even my son. ‘It doesn’t have goals.’”

“Well it doesn’t. You have this huge area to get the ball into, and you can use your hands. And the ball is huge. Where’s the challenge?”

Lydia shrugs next to him. “They have nice asses.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s a challenge.” Lydia pinches his leg, and he scowls at her. “Hey. Ow.”

“Stop bitching about the game. We’re having fun.”

“ _You’re_ having fun.”

Derek looks over at him. “You’re not having fun?”

“It’s not that I’m not—why am I arguing with you.” Stiles leans over to kiss Derek, bracing himself on Lydia’s leg, and she kicks at him. “Ow. Abuse. She’s abusing me.”

Derek’s free hand slides up his thigh, not quite next to Lydia’s foot. “I’ll protect you.”

His dad doesn’t look at him when he says, “I’m pretending the two of you are in a strictly platonic relationship where you hold hands and hug. You’re making that difficult.”

Really. “You threw condoms at me when I was sixteen and told me good luck.”

“At sixteen, nobody was having sex with you.”

Derek smirks at him, then takes his hand away, squeezing Stiles’s other hand. “I won’t do anything, sir.”

His dad laughs and still doesn’t look away from the game.

A while later, the game finishes, with someone winning something because the running people did running things (Stiles doesn’t understand football, so sue him), and his dad stands, stretching. “I have to go. Happy Thanksgiving. Melissa, you want a ride?”

Scott’s mom stands, too. “That would be great, thanks. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Food was great as usual.”

Scott smiles at her. “Thanks.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was talking to Isaac and Stiles.”

Isaac turns to smirk at Scott, then says, “Thank you, Mrs. McCall.”

Stiles shrugs. “I like making pie.”

“Well it was good. Night, everyone.”

There’s a round of “Good nights” from everyone including Derek, and Stiles doesn’t know if it’s the mother thing or just the fact that everyone likes Scott’s mom, but he seems to like her. Then the two of them head out, and it’s just pack and Derek.

Derek leans down to give Stiles a kiss. “I’m going to head out now, too.”

Scott looks at him from around Allison. “You can stay, you know.”

Derek stiffens. “This was fun, but, uh, I don’t think I can deal with a large pack being…affectionate.”

Oh, Derek. But there’s nothing Stiles can say that’ll make it better, and Scott just nods. “Fair enough. Well, you’re free to stay as long as you’d like.”

“I should go because I need to call Laura, but thanks.” Derek stands, entirely lifting Stiles up with him so he’s dangling in the air, Lydia’s legs sliding off of him, and Stiles resists the urge to shriek because he doesn’t want to embarrass himself. Not that the pack hasn’t seen basically everything he could ever do and more, but still.

And then Derek walks, Stiles still held in his arms, out of the room, Stiles waving at his pack as they go. Once they’re alone in the kitchen, Derek puts him down, holding him close in his arms. “Hey.”

Stiles presses his lips against Derek’s neck. “Hey. You okay?”

“I’m good.” Derek’s arms tighten. “Thank you for letting me come here. I haven’t done Thanksgiving in a long time.”

“I wish you could come for Christmas. Everyone would give you ridiculous presents. I’ve given Scott human-written werewolf porn for like eight years straight.”

Derek slides his hands up the back of Stiles’s shirt. “You could come with me instead, to New York. It’ll be in our territory this time, not Pack Alliance; you would be safe.”

“I’ll—” Stiles breathes in the smell of Derek, burying his nose against Derek’s collarbone. “I’ll see. I need to talk to Scott, but I’ll see.”

“Thank you.” Derek pulls one hand out from under Stiles’s shirt to tilt Stiles’s head up, fingers in his hair, forcing him to look at him. “I love you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Love you too.” He leans over to kiss Derek, but Derek holds him back for a second, fingers pulling at his hair, sharp points of pain against his scalp, and Stiles can’t stop the moan that comes out. Derek smiles then, leaning over to kiss him, hard, possessive, sucking on his lower lip, and Stiles tries to move into it but Derek’s hand is still there, holding him still, and he can’t do anything but take it.

And then Derek leans back, licking saliva off of his lip. “Stop by the hotel when you’re done.”

\--

Stiles takes a moment to compose himself after Derek walks out, taking deep breaths until his heart isn’t going way too fast and he hopefully smells a little bit less like arousal, and then he heads back into the living room. Where nobody is. Fantastic.

“Where are you?”

Scott calls back, “Bedroom,” and ah, that makes sense. Because Scott has a ridiculously large bed, and cuddling on the couch isn’t optimal. Stiles heads into the bedroom, where people are taking turns in the bathroom; Stiles strips down to his boxers, haphazardly folding up his clothes and dropping them in the spot he’s claiming. Otherwise their clothes get all mixed up, and it’s a mess in the morning.

He heads into the bathroom after Lydia comes out, pissing and then brushing his teeth with his toothbrush; they all have one in Scott’s bathroom, which would probably be weird if it wasn’t pack. By the time he comes out, most of the pack is strewn all over the bed, Scott with Isaac on one side and Allison on the other. Lydia’s next to her, and Stiles climbs in next to her, throwing an arm around her waist and burying his face in her hair. She turns to give him a hug.

They do this every holiday, whoever wants to come cuddle, and the numbers they have are low but unsurprising. Liam has only shown up to about half of them because he tends to stay the night with either his parents or Mason, and Isaac tended to show up to fewer when Scott was in the on part of the relationship with Kira. Malia dating a human means that her not showing up is unsurprising, which leaves those of them who are there.

Isaac makes a noise, and a second later, he slumps over on top of all of them, feet pressing against Stiles’s hipbone. Lydia groans. “Why are you so bony?”

“It’s my fashionable physique. Stop complaining.”

“Well your fashionable physique is pressing against my legs.”

Scott picks his head up from where it’s squished against Allison’s…something. “We should just have a giant five-way hug.”

Isaac and Lydia snort simultaneously, which is impressive. “Not happening.” Lydia shifts against Stiles. “Isaac, seriously, just lie on top of Scott and Allison, it’ll work fine.”

Isaac makes another noise. “I want to touch everyone.”

“You’re touching everyone.” Scott’s voice is muffled again, like he’s making out with Allison’s breasts again or something. “I wanna sleep. I wanna have nice fluffy dreams and sleep. Can we all just sleep?”

“Mmhmm.” Allison sounds muffled, too, and Stiles lets himself sink down into Scott’s ridiculously awesome bed, because pack, and warmth, and yay.

And he’s definitely getting the touch endorphins now, which aren’t as strong because he isn’t a werewolf but affect him more because he’s human, and he’s full and sleepy and this is really fucking awesome. “‘m all for sleeping.” And then he falls asleep, arm around Lydia, Isaac’s foot against his side.

Stiles wakes up with a scream buried in his chest and Isaac wrapped entirely around him; he jams his free hand into his mouth, biting in deep to keep from making a sound. The Nemeton wants him the Nemeton wants him the Nemeton wants him the Nemeton _wants him_ —

“‘s’kay.” Isaac shifts, hand half squishing into Stiles’s mouth, which is kind of uncomfortable, but he’s not going to say anything. “Nothin’ c’n hurt you. P’ck’s safe.” Stiles tries to shove Isaac’s hand out of his mouth, which does actually nothing except having Isaac resist and stick his hand further in. It’s not far enough in to choke him, so it’s basically okay, but still, ugh. “We keep you safe, S’iles. Shuddup anxiety.”

Close enough. Stiles pulls his own hand out of his mouth, because apparently Isaac’s hand is there to stay, and Stiles isn’t really strong enough to get it out, and somewhere between Isaac’s breathing and Lydia’s, Stiles falls back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this, we go back to our regularly scheduled depressing stuff. I'm not sure when the next post will be up, but hopefully it won't be in too long. School and work have both started, though, so we will see.


End file.
